


Questions

by Adaurora



Category: RWBY
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-28
Updated: 2015-11-28
Packaged: 2018-05-03 19:31:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5303909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adaurora/pseuds/Adaurora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Strangers are just friends you haven't met yet.'</p><p>With that in mind she turned back to Penny and half-smiled. "Yeah, sure," she shrugged, "why not?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Questions

When Ruby first met Penny, she wasn't exactly sure what to think of her. She ran to the corner Weiss had turned to catch up with the faunus, who they all now know as Sun, and saw her and someone else on the ground. Weiss was so distraught she hadn't even noticed why she had fallen to the ground until Yang caught her attention and pointed to the ground.

Weiss scrambled to her feet, but the other person in question was still on the ground. Making no move to stand up, she simply raised her hand with a "Salutations!" and looked up at the four of them. Ruby offered a confused hello and Yang skipped straight to the point, asking if she was alright and wanted to stand up. She gave a yes after a pause and jumped to her feet, introducing herself as Penny. They introduced themselves as well, Yang with some prompting from Blake, and they were on their way after an apology from Weiss and a "Take care, friend," from Ruby.

The whole exchange was... really odd.

Ruby trailed a few steps behind her team as they walked down a different street. Yang commented on the weird girl and Weiss was ready to give chase to the faunus once again, until they found themselves right in front of Penny again. "What did you call me?" She asked with her head tilted.

Yang immediately started apologizing while Weiss tried to figure out how she had ended up in front of them rather than behind. Penny shook her head, "No, not you," and moved forward, leaning in very close to Ruby who in turn leaned back. "You."

"Me?" Ruby remembers stammering, confused and looking everywhere except right in front of her and still barely grasping what was going on and _how could anyone even think when someone you don't really know is that close to you anyway_.

"You called me friend! Am I really your friend?" Penny asks, somehow leaning in closer than she had been before. Her eyes were so intense at the time Ruby could have sworn they were glowing. Ruby turned to her team for help, she saw them all signalling "no" as she looked at them. But before she even considered saying no, a thought tugged at the back of her head. Something that another friend had told her.

_'Strangers are just friends you haven't met yet.'_

With that in mind she turned back to Penny and half-smiled. "Yeah, sure," she shrugged, "why not?"

Her team practically fell to the ground while Penny's face lit up and she began to talk about all the things they'd do as friends. It was awkward, but light-hearted. At least until the topic of faunus came up again and tensions between Weiss and Blake rose again. They made their return to Beacon, the argument lasting way longer than Ruby and Yang were comfortable with. The moon was up when it finally ended, Blake running out of the room and Weiss with one of the angriest looks Ruby had ever seen her having.

Ultimately, Blake had disappeared for the whole weekend without a trace. Penny couldn't have been farther from Ruby's mind at the time when she showed up behind Weiss and complimented her hair. Once she found out what was going on, though, she vowed to stay with Ruby until Blake had been found. She tried to tell her it was alright, they could find her as a team, but this time when she looked to her teammates for help they were gone.

Ruby remembers the load of questions Penny had, some she thought were more obvious than others. She also remembered the stiff way she walked, arms straight down at her sides and one leg directly in front of the other. At one point she realized how annoyed she must sound with her answers and she felt guilty, but the thought occurred to her that her annoyance could have probably been as obvious as could be but the other girl wouldn't realize it unless it were spelled out.

Ruby then felt guilty for thinking about it that way.

The sun had finally set and it was actually silent between the two until it was interrupted by the sound of an explosion. She turned and saw the smoke rising, and knowing her team that explosion could only mean one thing.

Thankfully the source of the explosion wasn't too hard to find thanks to the smoke that clouded the sky. Her attention immediately caught Torchwick and she caught his with a shout.

"Ruby, are these people your friends?" Penny asked. Ruby really didn't want to deal with questions right now, and simply told her to stay back. But when she was met with a blast and knocked to the ground, she noticed Penny walking past her and towards the scene in front of her. Ruby tried to stop her, but she just turned her head and said, "Don't worry Ruby, I'm combat ready!"

Early on Ruby could have easily gotten back on her feet and helped her, but she was honestly in awe. She couldn't even tell exactly what was happening or why, but the way Penny moved with her swords had her frozen in place. Somehow she had even made a laser strong enough to cleanly slice two Bullheads and pull another one down entirely.

She was there when they found Blake and she was there when Blake explained everything. Ruby now had her own long list of questions for Penny, but first she had to listen to her teammate. Ruby watched as Weiss and Blake reconciled in their own way and was overjoyed when everything was all settled. A few moments passed and she realized that Penny had gone without a trace.

Well, one friend found, one friend gone.

* * *

 

For the next few weeks Ruby's questions about Penny would surface and she'd end up lost in thought about it. Was Penny alright? Why hadn't she said anything when she left? How did her weapons work? Where had she learned to fight like that? She had expected to see her again shortly with how Penny tended to show up out of nowhere without a sound. The longer it was, the more the worry presented itself when she thought of her.

The last place Ruby expected to see Penny was in front of the transmit tower, returning her scroll with a hiccup and pretending she had no idea who she was. Ruby chased after her, there was no way she was letting Penny get away from her again. "Penny, where have you been? It's been weeks!"

She looked around idly and turned back towards her. "There seems to be a... misunderstanding." 

"What?" Penny moved forward, not turning around or acknowledging her at all. "Penny, is everything okay?" Ruby slid down the railing to catch up to her but she still hadn't stopped walking. When she instead opted to reach for her and grab the taller girl's arm, she had finally stopped. Ruby told her what was going on and Penny sighed, leaning in and telling her it wasn't safe to talk where they were.

Ruby met up with her in front of a small café, tapping her shoulder and smiling as the other's small smile grew. Now it was Ruby's turn for questions, though she was sure Penny wouldn't mind any of them. As they made their way down the sidewalk, Ruby noting that her walk began to look much more natural compared to how it looked before, Penny told her she didn't know anything about the people who were at the docks.

"Well, what happened to you that night? We were all together and then you just disappeared-- were you kidnapped?"

"Oh, no, nothing like that!"

"Then where _did_ you go?" 

"I had never been to another kingdom before. My father asked me not to venture out too far, but..." She paused for a moment, "You have to understand, my father loves me very much. He just worries a lot."

Ruby rolled her eyes and smirked, "Believe me, I know the feeling." Penny smiled at that, and Ruby's chest felt tight for a moment before she shook the feeling away. "Why not let us know you were okay?"

"I, was asked, not to talk to you." Penny replied, pausing a couple of times mid-sentence. "Or Weiss, or Blake, or Yang. Anybody really."

"Was your dad that upset?"

"No, it wasn't my father." Penny looked like she was going to say something else until the sound of The General's hologram interrupted their conversation. The two of them looked around the corner and watched. She hadn't registered the "Ruby..." Penny had quietly said at the time, but she wished she had picked up on her discomfort sooner. "Ruby, I think we should go somewhere else," she said again, and before she could respond Penny was running away.

The next thing she knew she was chasing Penny down alleys between buildings and running from soldiers that seemed to be chasing after her. She didn't know who they were or why they were chasing Penny, but it didn't matter. Ruby grabbed Penny and used her semblance to speed down the next alley. But Penny was much heavier than she had anticipated for someone taller and skinnier than her and she ended up tapping out, dropping Penny and tumbling right into the road.

She heard a honk, stood up and turned, faced right in front of a truck. Her legs were weak and she froze, everything was in slow motion for a few seconds as the truck grew dreadfully close. Then she felt a shove, looking up just in time to see Penny right in front of the truck instead of her.

Her stomach dropped and everything returned to normal speed, but instead of Penny getting hit, the ground under her feet cracked and the truck lifted up in the air before falling back to the ground. 

Once again she had her own questions about Penny returning to her full speed, but all she could manage was "Penny...?" Penny looked over at her and then looked down at the palm of her hands, curling them and brushing past Ruby down another alley. "Penny, come back!"

Ruby ran after her again, she was going to figure out what was going on damn it, and Penny had finally stopped in front of her. "Penny! Please, what is going on? Why are you running? How did you do that?"

"I can't- everything's fine-!" she hiccuped and wrapped her arms around herself, "I don't want to talk about it-" she hiccuped a second time and turned away, her head downward.

"Penny if you can just tell me what's wrong I can help you!"

"No, no no, you wouldn't understand." Penny had completely turned away from her now. 

"Let me try, you can trust me." She turned back around and faced her again, looking her straight in the eye.

"You're my friend, right? You promise you're my friend?"

"I promise."

"Ruby..." she uncurled her hands in front of you, "I'm not a real girl."

Ruby looked down at her hands, knowing exactly what she was looking at but at the same time not knowing at all. "Oh," was all she managed to say at first as she saw the shine of the metal where the scratches of her hands were. 

She expressed her confusion and Penny began to explain how she was not born, but instead made. 'The first synthetic person capable of generating an aura.' Her face fell after her explanation, hands curling again as she softly said, "I'm not real." 

Ruby lifted her hands and held Penny's in hers, opening them and looking at her hand closer. She wrapped her hand around Penny's and held them. "Of course you are. You think just because you've got nuts and bolts instead of squishy guts makes you any less real than me?"

"I don't, um," Penny leaned in again, her green eyes narrowing as she looked at Ruby. This time Ruby was sure they really were glowing. "You're taking this extraordinarily well."

"You're not like those things we saw back there. You've got a heart," and she tapped her chest to punctuate her words, "and a soul, I can feel it."

That ended with a very strong hug from Penny, her saying she was the best friend anyone could have. After that, the only things she found out before their time together was over was she was built almost entirely by her father, and she hiccups when she lies. If anything, this raised more questions about Penny than questions solved, but Ruby couldn't help but smile through the trash can she was tossed in.

It was even harder to stop thinking about her after that, Ruby found, and she caught herself smiling about it more than she'd like to admit. Of course Yang noticed and teased her about it, though Ruby wasn't really sure what there was to tease about.

Through her thinking she realized other than knowing Penny was a robot with an aura, Ruby doesn't know anything about her. Knowing that answered a few questions, but brought up many more. Every time she ran into Penny something big was happening and there wasn't much time for idle chat. But then she thought of her smile and the way she hugged her and Ruby found that weird tight feeling in her chest again and she tried to push it out of her mind for another day.

She later decides sometime they'll go out on their own adventure, just the two of them, and not let anything or anyone get in the way of it. 

So when she sees Penny walking behind General Ironwood after Qrow's fight with Weiss's sister, she doesn't give chase (though she does push someone out of the way), but instead simply waves and smiles at her friend as Penny walks away while smiling her own wide smile, because she knows she'll see her again later on. Just the two of them, asking each other as many questions as they want.

**Author's Note:**

> I am so sleep-deprived this is probably not the best but I can't sleep when I get an idea so this happened. Now I can finally sleep.


End file.
